


Juno Undying

by Ernmark (M_Moonshade)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: M/M, especially in that the immortality clashes with Juno's suicidal tendencies, immortality AU, rather dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-09-15 19:48:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9253439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/M_Moonshade/pseuds/Ernmark
Summary: After the events of Final Resting Place, Juno learns (rather gruesomely) that he can't die. He's not exactly thrilled by this discovery.





	1. Chapter 1

Calling the Neo-Derringer a personal artillery canon isn’t just marketing. One shot and it’ll leave a hole big enough to see through from forty meters away. The one upside is that it’s not one of the most painful ways to die. If the shock doesn’t kill you instantly, you’ll bleed out before you can feel a thing.

At least, that’s the running theory.

Except I saw the gun. I saw her pull the trigger. I saw the flash of blue light that indicates a maximum charge. Hell, there’s a hole in my shirt big enough to shove half my arm through, and there’s another one to match it in the back, both stained with more blood than should be in a body in the first place.

And yet here I am. I mean, yeah, my chest hurts and I’ve got one hell of a headache, but the hole that should be there? It’s not. My pulse is a little high, but otherwise fine. I’m breathing okay.

I should be dead, but I’m not.

Funny how that keeps happening to me lately. Only unlike the Martian bomb, there’s no good reason for the NDPA not to have killed me.

* * *

I thought I could make the jump, and I couldn’t. What happened next was a forty-story drop onto hard concrete.

I _should_ be dead. _I should be dead._ Instead I’m lying here, sore and aching at the epicenter of a puddle of blood and gore that I know instinctively used to be inside me but isn’t anymore. But aside from a bit of discomfort and a reinforced fear of heights, I’m fine.

And I think that’s the scariest part.

* * *

The Triad catches up with me. They put a lead bullet between my eyes and dump me in the sewer. I wake up while a bunch of rabbits are searching my corpse for spare change.

* * *

Alcohol poisoning. Nothing.

* * *

Cyanide. Nothing.

* * *

A bomb. Okay, now _that_ one hurt for days, and it blew off my clothes. Doesn’t stop me from stealing a new set and walking home, though.

* * *

For most of my life, I haven’t been actively suicidal so much as I’ve been waiting for death to come to me. I figure if you live a dangerous enough life, it’ll just happen on its own time, and hell, maybe I can go out with something big and heroic. But suddenly it won’t happen—or it can’t—and it pisses me off. This is my life, goddammit. You can’t just strap me into the ride and tell me I can never leave. Even if I don’t want to kill myself right this minute doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to at least have the option.

And yet here I am.

At least I can use it to my advantage. I’ve been taking more dangerous cases lately. The kind most people don’t come back from. People aren’t about to believe that I’m literally unkillable, so they tell themselves I’m just that good. And with cases like these, I can charge top dollar. Not really sure what I’m supposed to do with this kind of money, but Rita’s got a car of her own, and not a half-bad one, either. She’s got insurance and everything.

And on my downtime, I’m investigating things of my own.

It’s got something to do with the Ancient Martians, I know that much. Splicing herself into one made Miasma next to unkillable; maybe the Martian pill did more than give me telepathy.

Only the bomb killed her—it destroyed every trace of everything Martian in that room. So why wouldn’t the blast do the same to any altered DNA in me as it did to her? Unless it was just human enough to not be effected?

It’s a theory, and not a very good one. I’ll talk to experts once I’m completely out of my depth, but before then I want to understand this as well as possible. You don’t just go up to the first scientist you meet and tell them you’re suddenly immortal. There are a lot of ways that can end, and none of them are good.

So I research. And I research. And I’m actually learning a lot lately. Rita keeps telling me I need to go on one of those trivia shows she loves so much. I keep thinking I’m starting to get somewhere, and then I find one or two little details that blows my latest theory out of the sky. I just need a clue, I tell myself. One little hint to point me in the right direction.

When I get it, it doesn’t come from the place I’d expect.

* * *

It’s a late night. My eyes hurt from staring at a screen, and I’m fighting a headache, but I don’t want to head to bed just yet. I just want to research a little bit more. A little more. Just a little more.

But my mind is wandering, and it’s hard to think straight. The author of the last paper I read was a professor of nanobiology in the Military Academy of Brahma, and it got me thinking. And once I started, I couldn’t stop.

Where is Peter Nureyev? What has he been up to since…

It’s a stupid question and I know it, because he’ll never use that name again, or any of the aliases I know him by. There’s no way to look him up and find where he is now.

But I can know where he used to be.

I’ve seen his past through his eyes; I wonder what it looked like to an outsider. How did New Kinshasa see their savior? How did the news report the near-destruction of their city?

So I do a quick search on one of my encrypted systems, using the programs Rita wrote for me. They dig through galaxies’ worth of data and bring me back the closest match.

But that can’t be right.

That’s the event I’m looking for: when terrorist Peter Nureyev appeared out of nowhere, broke into a top-security facility, and threatened to take New Kinshasa out of the sky. It would be a perfect match, except for one thing.

The date looks… wrong.

I check it against the standard and Martian calendars. No, it’s not an error of translation. It’s not a typo.

But that _can’t_ be right.

Because if it is, Peter Nureyev killed Mag and left Brahma more than two hundred years ago.


	2. Chapter 2

_KING GLASS—_  
861  
EXPLAIN  
—DAHLIA

It’s not the first graffiti of its kind that I’ve come across. In fact, I’ve seen the exact series of words (sometimes horribly misspelled) vandalizing dozens of the most prominent collections of art and artifacts across the galaxy.

The difference about this time is that I catch the would-be artist in the act. It isn’t hard to convince her I’m an undercover cop, and easier still to get her to tell me why she’s spray-painting this particular message on this particular wall.

“I—I was paid to do it!” she whimpers.

I put on my most menacing face and lean closer. “By _whom_?”

“I—I don’t know. The message was encrypted a few times over. They just dropped twenty creds in my account, and promised double that for every tag I put up near a gallery, so long as I sent pictures to prove I’d done it. I’m not the only one, either. The same weirdo’s been hiring folks all over the place.”

After I send her on her way, I check the emails she showed me. She wasn’t exaggerating: the amount of security protecting the sender is truly staggering. I suspect there are only a handful of people in the galaxy capable of cracking such code, let alone deciphering it, and one of them happens to be Juno’s secretary.

I admit I’m a little bit touched. There are a hundred thousand ways he might have tried to catch my attention, any of which could have left me exposed and vulnerable to… all sorts of unpleasantness. Instead he chose this: pointed, specific, and untraceable. It almost feels like a love letter. I’d be flattered, if not for the undertone of anger in his message and the fact that I am still utterly furious with him.

So I ignore it.

Bored children have crafted the message into a meme, and rebellious teenagers have taken to tagging it onto every surface that will stand still long enough for paint to dry. Talking heads and mechanical puppets bring it up on slow news days, debating whether King Glass is the name of a new gang, or if Dahlia refers to the legendary Black Dahlia murders of ancient history. Everybody has their guess about the number, whether it’s a body count or a location or the weight of a shipment of drugs. So far, nobody has guessed that it’s a date: the year I left Brahma, according to the local calendar.

Which means Juno’s finally taken the initiative to look me up. And judging by his tone, he’s noticed a minor discrepancy.

 _It’s about time_ , I tell myself. Still, I ignore him.

At least, until I see his message printed on a t-shirt one day, and a purse a few blocks later. It turns out that someone is actually _selling_ them—not a little street vendor, either, but an interstellar chain, cashing in on the latest viral hit.

After a lifetime of successfully eluding my past, I’ve finally met the man who has rendered himself inescapable.

 _Unbelievable_.

I’ve sworn to myself a thousand times over that I’ll never go back to Mars. It’s still too painful, too humiliating, too tempting. But this isn’t about soothing my loneliness or begging him to come back to me. I’m here because I’m annoyed.

Nothing else.

Just that.

* * *

I’ve made a point of not researching Juno in the past few years, but a quick glance tells me he’s been doing well for himself. Surviving the Martian tomb has made him bolder, and his clientele has noticed. Even so, he seems to live in the same apartment and work out of the same office as before. He never was the type to be seduced by money. There’s no additional security, no guards—there are digital locks on the windows and doors, but they aren’t engaged. I suppose I can’t be too surprised by that, either, given that he called for me by name.

Still, I lurk in silence outside the window for a few moments, listening for signs of life inside, and I allow myself to wonder.

I picture a moment parallel to our last: I creep into the apartment. He’s in bed, the care in his face smoothed away by sleep. He’s beautiful like that, captured in fantasy, and I slip into bed beside him, the exact opposite of the way he slipped away from me.

But that would be… admittedly a bit creepy. Besides, real life is rarely so poetic.

It’s been years. He might have gotten a dog in that time. Maybe I waited too long to respond to his message, and he found himself a new partner to share his bed. Maybe he’ll out drinking, or spending his earnings at that ladies-and-gentlemen’s club he’s so fond of.

Sighing, I climb through the window.

I don’t even have time to get appropriately situated before the front door opens. Against the dark of the apartment, the hallway light seems golden, and Juno’s silhouette framed in the doorway is striking. He steps inside, turns on the light, and shuts the door behind him. He hasn’t gotten that cybernetic eye we talked about; instead the right side of his face is partially obscured by an eye patch. He looks tired—but then, he’s always looked tired.

Staring at him now, I can’t decide whether to slap him, kiss him, or fold him over the nearest piece of furniture for the roughest sex of my very long life.

“Well,” I say, shoving all three options into a mental box for later consideration. “That was remarkably well-timed.”

He jerks his head at the window. “Pressure sensor under one of the bricks. Sends an alert straight to my phone if anyone tries to climb in that way.”

Ah, so he _has_ been investing in security. How refreshing.

“I wish I could say the same about your timing, Nureyev. I was starting to think you wouldn’t show.”

The obvious line is ‘I’m not a dog, Juno, I don’t come when called.’ But I can’t bring myself to say it. Because the rebuttals to that one are just as obvious, and a thousand times more painful.

“I won’t pretend the thought didn’t cross my mind,” I say instead.

He glances away, but covers the motion by taking off that beaten-up old trench coat. It seems less a coat and more a quilt, it’s so covered in patches and repairs. The silence between us is a chasm, and I can think of a thousand ways to fill it—but I’ll regret each and every one.

“I highly doubt you called me here to stand in awkward silence,” I said. “You wanted to talk, and here I am.”

“Here you are,” he agrees. “And since the last time I saw you, you haven’t aged a day.”

“Well, it hasn’t been all _that_ long.”

“It’s been years, Nureyev.”

I shrug lightly. “What can I say? I’m well preserved.”

He fixes me with a look. “Julian DiMaggio is well preserved. Min Kanagawa is well preserved. But when the likes of them lie about their age, they’re only shaving off ten, maybe twenty years, tops. I’m guessing the number on your passport is off by a couple hundred.”

“It does spare me from a few rather awkward questions when I travel. Really, Juno, I don’t know why you’re so surprised. I gave you free rein inside my head, didn’t I?”

He crosses the room and pulls a bottle of scotch from underneath his desk, along with a pair of tumblers. “Oddly enough, I didn’t think to check your birth certificate at the time.”

“And I don’t see how that’s my fault.”  

“Maybe it’s not.” He pours several fingers of scotch and lifts one of the glasses in his hand, considering it carefully. “Are you even human?”

So we finally get down to it, then. “That’s a rather complicated question.”

“Is it?”

“You can run a thousand tests on me, and I won’t register as being markedly different from most anyone else living on this planet. Miasma certainly didn’t observe anything out of the ordinary.”

“Except that you don’t age.”

“Fortunately for us both, she didn’t keep us around long enough to notice.”

He gives me another odd look, and then drains his glass in a single gulp. “And if she shot you? Would you have died?”

“Are you intending to shoot me, Juno?”

“Just answer the question.”

I can’t read the expression on his face, so I answer honestly. “No. I wouldn’t.”

“What about falling?” he asks. “Getting stabbed? Blown up? Being hit by a car? Would any of that even leave a scar, or would you just wake up a little while later and be perfectly fine? Oh, and how are your clothes afterward? Because getting new ones every time is just a pain in the ass.”

Unintentionally I step forward, reaching out to him, but he just puts the other glass into my hand. That’s probably for the best, because my throat is suddenly bone dry. The scotch burns all the way down.

“So you do know what’s going on.” He refills my glass, then his own. “You’re the one who did it, aren’t you?”

I wanted to share eternity with him. I shared my very soul with him. And here he is, talking like giving him the most precious thing I had left to give was akin to murder.

But then, maybe it was.

I look at my drink, then back to the coat, silently trying to count the number of patches. “How many times have you died?”

“Why? Is there a limit? One hundred times and then you’re free to go, or something like that?”

I hope that number was randomly chosen, because the thought turns my stomach almost as much as his turn of phrase. “No.”

“Then why does it matter?”

“Because it’s usually incredibly painful, among other things. Much as it may surprise you, Juno, dying is usually something to be avoided.”

“Oh, is that what this is all about?” he asks. “Some kind of lesson you wanted to teach me? Well, good job. You really set me straight. No more reckless behavior for me. You happy now?”

I stare at him, confounded.

“Or was this whole thing about—about punishing me? Because yeah, what I did was shitty. But that’s one hell of a way to get revenge, Nureyev.”

 _Revenge_. The word comes like a slap in my face.

I might be offended, but all I can think of is Juno down the barrel of a laser. Juno at the epicenter of an explosion. Juno falling.

I try to speak, but my voice is distant and weak. “I never intended to hurt you.”

“No, apparently you just turned me immortal without my knowledge or consent.”

“What did you expect me to do?” I snap, pushed from horror to outrage. “I had no idea what else was in that tomb—for all I knew Miasma had made a double of herself, or laid traps for us, or one of her assistants was still alive and ready to shoot us the moment we turned a blind corner. What was I supposed to do, Juno? Stand around and listen to you die all over again?”

For a moment Juno blinks, almost hesitates. But the moment passes. “And it didn’t occur to you to ask me?”

I slam the glass down on his desk so hard that it cracks. “After weeks of torture? After you locked yourself in a room with a monster and a bomb? After listening to you talk about the Ancient Martians like you were jealous of their grand departure? Giving you the choice right then, after everything that happened—I might as well have put a loaded gun into your hand.” I’m breathing hard. My face is burning. Juno’s suddenly only inches away, and he’s ghost pale. I don’t remember who got into the other’s space, and I don’t care. I don’t think I can stop the words from spilling out of me. “I had every intention of telling you, Juno—of giving you the choice to keep it or give it back. But _later_ , when we were both safe and calm enough to _have_ that conversation. And I thought we would have time—that we would have days, weeks, before that had to happen. But then I woke up and _you were gone._ ”

My voice is hoarse. Juno’s, when he speaks, is dry. “So why didn’t you take it back right then? You could have been rid of me for good.”

My hands curl around his shoulders. I can’t decide if I want to pull him closer or wring his neck. Instead I sigh and let my head fall forward, resting my brow against his. I’m just so tired of being angry at him. I’m tired of hurting every time I think of him. I’m tired of missing him. “Because I still love you, you impossible idiot.”

Juno sighs heavily and leans into me. “That was your first mistake.”

“Also I was too furious to even consider kissing you again,” I admit in barely a mutter.

“See, now you’re being sensible.” His hands rise to cup my cheeks. “So that’s how it happens? A kiss?”

“Essentially.” It’s more like breathing a part of my soul into him, or inhaling it back into myself. But I’m not about to argue semantics. “I can take it back, if you want. You’ll go back to being exactly as you were.”

“Does that mean you’re okay with kissing me again?”

At this point, I don’t dare to hope. But he raises his head and presses his lips to my forehead.

“I shouldn’t have left like that. I’m sorry, Peter.”

When I kiss him back, I can taste my own soul on his breath, just like on that first night we spent together. I could lean in and take it back right now. But I don’t.

There’s a conversation we need to have. A very, very long one. And I intend to make sure he lives to reach the end of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole fic was prompted by a single line in Final Resting Place:
> 
> "The Martians are dead– the last of them, gone. Their choices have been made and buried in this tomb. You and I, Juno – we’re alive, and free to make whatever choices we please... And I can think of one I’d like to make right now."
> 
> I know canonically he was choosing to start a relationship with Juno, but I couldn't help but wonder what other kinds of choices he might be making at this moment.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:  
> Would you ever do another installment of the juno undying au? Or is that one finished? I love your writing!

I can hear her heels clicking as our new client crosses the floor, but it’s hard to focus on that right this minute. Almost the second the door shut behind her, Peter sidled up behind my chair. He’s bent over me, his lips on my neck, his sharp teeth just barely grazing my skin. I shut my eye and let my head roll back as he traces a line from my throat, up my jaw, and finally to my mouth. 

“You know, this looks like a pretty straightforward case. Not even a little dangerous. You don’t actually need to…” 

“Maybe not,” he purrs. “But a deal’s a deal.”

“It’ll be boring.”

“With you? Never.” 

I don’t argue– I just let my lips part so he can deepen the kiss. 

The process doesn’t actually have to be so drawn-out, but I’m pretty sure he enjoys it as much as I do. It makes it feel more intimate and less like something he’s doing to me. 

We’ve done it so often that I can feel the change– almost cold but barely there, like he’s breathing dry ice vapor into my mouth. Only vapor dissipates after a few moments. This just keeps going, unfurling and expanding until it’s filled every inch of me. 

His _soul_ , he calls it. 

You know, it’s funny, but I don’t think I ever actually believed in souls before I met him. I still don’t know if I believe in the religious part of it all, but I believe in whatever _this_ is. At this point, I’d have to be an idiot not to.

He lingers over my mouth a few seconds longer than necessary. Even then, he only pulls back enough to let me hear him. “Shall we?”

“Let’s go.” 

* * *

I wasn’t kidding when I said this case would be boring, but our client works with an insurance company, and they’re willing to pay good money for next to nothing. Mostly that means long hours of nothing while Peter and I do surveillance. Mostly we’re just sitting in a car, staring at a building, but he acts like we’re out on some kind of date. Which is… okay, yeah, it’s kind of sweet. And it does make the assignment go faster when I’ve got him to talk to. Still, I wouldn’t bore him with something like this, but apparently the last two centuries or so have graced him with superhuman patience. 

And like he said: a deal’s a deal.

* * *

When we first got back together, I tried going on a few cases without Peter’s immortality to keep me in one piece. I didn’t die or anything, but there were a few pretty close calls, and they hit Peter harder than they did me.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night, my chest still throbbing from a stab wound that might actually have killed me. The bed was empty and cold where it shouldn’t have been. Peter’s side barely looked like it had been slept in.

When I padded out of the bedroom, I found Peter sitting at the desk, his head in his hands, his face gray in the dim light. 

“Hey,” I said. “Can’t sleep?” 

He didn’t raise his head to look at me. His voice was hollow and bone dry. “I don’t know if I can do this anymore.” 

The only heat left in me was the ache of the stab wound; the rest of me felt like I’d been dropped into freezing water. “You’re leaving me?”

“I’m sorry, Juno. I can’t–” His voice broke, and the pieces were so jagged they should have left me bleeding. “I can’t stay here and watch you die again. I _can’t_ –” 

I don’t know what the rest of that sentence was supposed to be. He was shaking too badly to get any of it out. It was hours before he could speak coherently again. 

I couldn’t let him leave. He couldn’t let me die.

So we made a compromise.

* * *

On my down time, I’m mortal unless I say otherwise. I rarely say otherwise.

On cases, I’m invulnerable, starting the moment the client pays the invoice and ending when I’ve completed my contract– but only if Peter joins me on the case. There’s no way I’m going to spend hours alone contemplating my mortality, or lack thereof. There’s no way I’m letting him wander off the the farthest corners of the galaxy for a decade or two and leave me wondering if he’s really left me for good this time. No– if he wants me, he’ll have to stick around. If he leaves, then he leaves knowing that I might not be here when he comes back. 

It might not be exactly fair, but honestly, I’m not sure which one of us is being cheated in this deal. Peter seems to be enjoying himself– maybe I’m wasting his time, but it’s not like he’s running out of the stuff. And until he gets bored with me, I’m going to hold onto him as long as I can.


End file.
